Well Wednesday marked one week of being here at Alona Beach on the little island of Panglao, right off the coast of the island called Bohol. Alona Beach is the tourist area of these two islands with lots of beachside resorts and many a tour guide offering to show you all the things to do in Panglao, or to take you to Bohol for an all day excurssion or out to sea for various adventures. Walking down the streets you are constantly fending off these men with their fun filled menus. "Hindi, Salamat." ("No, Thank you" in Tagalog.) - but evetntually they wear you down.
We had no need for a guide to take us to any land adventures since we have a scooter. Getting around and exploring on our own would be easy. However, we do not have a boat. . .We decided we wanted to go visit the sea turtles. We walked down the street to get to the beach and no one bothered us. Was everyone on break? Where were the men with the menus of fun? We get to the beach and a guy sitting in a chair in the shade says "you want dolphin watching?" very lazily as if he was just as tired of hearing " no" as we were of saying it. That's our guy.
"Actually, we want to see the sea turtles." I said
"Ah, snorkeling! Yes!" He said jumping up very excitedly.
"When?" I asked. It was about 2pm and I figured we would be setting something up for the next day
"Now," He said. "I am a Captain." We discussed the details and for about $50 we could rent out the boat and his crew and have about 6 hours of fun and not join group of 10 other people crammed into a boat like a bunch of sardines. So off we went, we stopped at a convenience store for water and sunblock and followed Captain Jeffery down the shoreline to his boat. We hopped on and off we went to the island of Balicasag. When we arrived, we met Kevin, our tour guide, He fitted us for masks and flippers and then we followed him. We thought we were getting back on the boat to go out to do the snorkeling, but no. We followed Kevin and madde our way to a less rocky area and waded out into the water, at a certain point he saidto put on the flippers, we did and then he dove under water and popped up a little further out. Normally the water has been very calm, but today it was a little choppy and it took some energy to get out deep enough to start seeing some of the good stuff. So, naturally this is when I started to worry. Why didn't we have a boat? Why did I tell Captain Jeffery "no I don't need a life vest." Obviously I was already out of energy and I was too tired to swim and this was just not going to work. Tour Guide Kevin and Grant reminded me that I can float until I regain my energy (duh!) and we went on. . . so here are some pictures and video of our meeting of the sea turtles.
Comments